


Burning Bright

by firecat



Category: Original Work
Genre: Aches & Pains, Aging, Bathing/Washing, Bruises, Erections, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Older Man/Younger Man, Pining, Quotations, Temptation, Undressing, Valeting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:40:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26577694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firecat/pseuds/firecat
Summary: The lord's young valet tends to his aches and pains after a bruising polo match. If only he could do more.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 19
Kudos: 37
Collections: pine4pine 2020





	Burning Bright

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KannaOphelia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KannaOphelia/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy reading this treat as much as I enjoyed writing it!

William gently pulls the coat off his master’s shoulder. Lord Charles groans.

“I’m sorry, milord,” William says.

“It’s not your fault, William, my man. I’ve wrenched my shoulder. Old body not what it used to be. Not likely to be playing polo again, I’m afraid.”

William is working on the sleeves now. He unclasps the fine silver cufflinks. His master’s body might not be what it was, but his hands are still large and strong. 

William can’t help remembering the time those hands had clasped his shoulders. His master’s face, torn with pain. His baritone voice, crying out roughly, “Say it isn’t so, man!” 

William, a mere valet, allowed only to stand stiffly and stoically as his master threw his arms around him, pressing their bodies together, weeping on William’s shoulder. 

How William had wanted to touch his lips against his master’s face, cover him with kisses, speak soothing words to him. Not that such words would have taken away his master’s grief over the death of his wife. But they might have eased the agony for a moment.

William removes the shirt and the undershirt, and barely holds back a gasp.

“Milord is badly bruised,” he whispers, as he sees the black and blue marks covering his lord’s barrel chest and plump stomach. 

“Tumbled twice from that gods-be-damned horse. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Lord Arbor had paired me with him on purpose to unseat me.” 

William has heard from Lord Arbor’s valet, chuckling nastily, that this is indeed what was planned. He burns to avenge his master. Oh, what he would like to do if he could get his hands on Lord Arbor. 

But it’s not William’s place to avenge his master. Or even to tell his master what the valet told him. His place is only to take care of his lord’s body, whether or no something has happened to hurt or damage it. 

And William wouldn’t give that up for the world. It’s enough — well, almost enough — to prepare his bath, give him his shave, take care of his clothing. Make sure his bed is soft and warm every night, before William goes off to his own, small but luxuriously private, chamber. To ache, with his hand wrapped around his cock, for his master to see him, to reach out and say, “You care for me so sweetly, William. Are there any other ways you wish to show me care?” Longing for his master to touch him with those strong hands, the flexible mouth that smiles so beautifully. 

“Shall I apply some liniment, milord?” William asks. 

“Yes, after the bath,” says Lord Charles. He bends down to pull off his trousers and groans. “Oh, my back.”

“Permit me, milord.” William unfastens the trousers and removes them and the drawers, trying to hide how his hands are trembling as he pulls them down over milord’s ample arse. Swallowing the copious saliva that pours into his mouth as his master stands naked before him, the long cock dangling between his legs. William helps him into the hot bath.

The groan his master makes as he eases himself into the hot water is one that William longs to hear with his lips wrapped around that cock. Now he emits it only in appreciation of the bath water, or once in a blue moon when he’s enjoying William’s hands massaging his neck after a shave. 

William washes his master’s back with the boar bristle brush. He has bruises there too, and on his arse. William wants to kiss them. 

After the bath, William fetches the liniment. He spreads a clean cloth over the bed and bids his lord to lie down. He covers his master’s groin with a handkerchief and sets about examining the bruises.

Lord Charles tosses away the handkerchief with a grunt of annoyance. “We don’t need this, do we? It’s not as if you haven’t seen me in my birthday suit hundreds of times.”

“Yes, milord. Sorry, milord.” William holds his hands behind his back and averts his eyes, lest he yield to his desire to stroke and squeeze what his master has revealed.

“And it’s not as if my old broken body is going to be tempting anyone. Least of all you,” says his lord. “Young, tall, handsome man that you are.“

“Sir?” is all that William can force past his lips. Past the words waiting there — oh milord, let me show you how tempting you are. Let me show you with my words, my hands, my mouth.

“Never mind. Forget I said anything,” says Lord Charles in a gruff voice. “I’m in so much pain I can’t think straight.”

“Shall I apply the liniment, milord?” 

“Yes, William. Let’s see if the new snake oil the quack of a doctor is selling does anything but line his pockets.” Lord Charles closes his eyes. His breathing is slightly labored from the pain.

William opens the bottle. It smells of pine and ginger. He pours some oil into his palm to warm it, then gently touches his fingertips to the bruise in the center of his lord’s chest. He strokes the beloved skin firmly but gently. His master’s copious chest hair — once black as pepper, then salt-and-pepper, now increasingly salt — rasps softly under his palm. How he loves that sound, that sensation, which he has experienced only a handful of times in his years of service.

“I thought you were going to treat the bruises, not give me a massage,” comes his master’s voice some minutes later. 

William starts guiltily. “You have so many bruises, milord. It’s easier to apply the liniment to your whole torso.”

“All right. I’ll leave the ministrations to you.”

His master’s breathing gradually deepens. William, acutely attuned to it, knows he is deeply relaxed but not asleep. He permits himself a moment of pleasure at being able to ease his master’s pain. He continues the gentle massage of his chest, moving to his ample belly, wishing he could slide his hands under the tempting fold there. But there aren’t likely to be any bruises in that area.

And then he glances farther down his master’s body, and sees something that surprises him. 

His master’s cock is burgeoning. 

He’s rarely seen it in other than its flaccid state, but those sightings have been burned into his memory, replayed over and over again, alone in his chamber at night. 

For a short man, his master is unexpectedly well graced. He fills out to a good size, especially in girth. William can’t take his eyes off it, but he keeps his hands on his master’s chest, continuing to rub softly. 

“I have bruised nipples, do I?” mumbles Lord Charles.

“I’m sorry, milord.” William snatches his hands away, applies more liniment, places the hands back on a slightly less tempting and sensitive part of his master’s body. 

His master’s breathing deepens again. The cock continues to grow, though.

William’s hands slide lower. Chest, diaphragm, abdominals, the rounded belly. His master’s breathing does not change. William’s hand hovers over the beautiful cock, upright against his lord’s belly. 

The cock jumps, hitting his palm briefly before he’s able to pull it away.

William can’t move or breathe, and so he counts his thundering heartbeats. One, two, three, four…

When he gets to ten, William hears Lord Charles speaking. He glances at his master’s face. The eyes remain closed. 

“On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire?” Lord Charles says. 

William recognizes the words of the poet who is his namesake — Blake, his master’s favorite, whom he reads aloud some evenings as William is preparing him for sleep.

His master opens his eyes then, and gazes at him, as if William were an angel descended from Heaven. Or perhaps a tyger.

William stares back. He doesn’t know if he’s going to be let go, or let in. He lets his yearning show in his face, perhaps for the first time.

“My William, dare I dream it? Do you wish to touch me — my aching, aging, ruin of a body — as much as I wish to be touched by you? As much as I wish to worship your beauty with my hands and my mouth? And any other part of me you find pleasing?”

William wishes he were eloquent and educated. He wishes he could quote Shakespeare, or Blake, the way his master can, the words bursting forth from the tongue at just the right moment. 

Given enough time, perhaps he will learn the right words to say. 

Now, all he can say is, “Yes, milord.”

It is enough.

“Touch me, I beg you,” says his beloved master.


End file.
